Through the Crowd - Espresseleine Story

FINAL author's notes

!! WARNING: Please do NOT read this before reading the rest of the story if you don't want spoilers. This is the final part for a reason. !!
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(See bottom of part for definitions of words marked by *)
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This story contains some certainly heavy topics, being discussing emotions, discrimination, abusive relationships, and whatever else you want to consider.

As a note, Grenadine is not supposed to be a character that weighs down war veterans, but he is made to serve as a reminder and antagonist:

- When someone comes back from war, it's difficult for them to be the same person. Lot's of families expect them to be that happy, kind personality that left, but after such a traumatic event it changes them. While not everyone who returns from that becomes abusive like the character in this story was told to have, most, if not all, people end up permanently traumatized from this experience. War is hard to recover from, both physically and mentally.

- Grenadine is meant to represent everything standing in between the two main characters and their relationship. To Espresso, coming out of such an abusive relationship would affect the way he perceives love. Grenadine also represents the social divide between the Créme Republic, having been from the Upper City and once again influencing Espresso in a way that would make him think every Upper Civilian must be that way.

Discrimination* is a heavy topic in this story, and I think I should talk about it.

A big problem happening in the Créme Republic, and, obviously, in the real world, is discrimination. In every way, including racial, religious, gender, homophobia, xenophobia*, and others. Discrimination is a problem that should never be romanticized or glorified. In this story, (mainly) religious discrimination is used as an example and reason of why the characters are clashing.

I do want to say that I believe discrimination is mostly the fault of society as a whole, and less the fault of any single person. As an example, most people who might be sexist would be so because their parents were, and they grew up that way. This is how it is in the Créme Republic in this story, except for the difference being that it's religious discrimination and a form of xenophobia instead.

Obviously, not to say that isn't always true. There are some people who grow up in a way where they aren't taught to be discriminatory, but still end up that way because of a personal experience or belief. I have no arguments to defend these types of people, and neither should you. It is never ok to discriminate against a group just because of one or multiple bad experiences with someone belonging to that group, because not everyone is the same.

Madeleine changes his discriminatory views around the end of the story as a result of breaking away from the views of the general public Upper Civilians. Again following the way I believe discrimination can be dealt with, people can change their world views and opinions despite possibly being unfairly discriminatory beforehand.

Abusive relationships should also, in my opinion, never be romanticized or glorified.

This story was not in any way meant to glorify abusive relationships, which is also why, while still including it, I made it a problem rather then a good part of the story. Glorifying abusive relationships means promoting them, which is never a good thing to do.

Verbal arguments don't equal abusive. It happens to everyone, and while opinions between partners may be different, it doesn't necessarily make the relationship abusive.

On a brighter note-
If you've made it this far, thank you for reading. And if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to voice them.

*Discrimination - The unjust or prejudicial
treatment of different categories or people,
especially on the grounds of ethnicity, age, sex,
or disability.
*Xenophobia - Dislike of or prejudice against
people from other countries.